AN  ANSWER 


TO 


DR.  KEEN'S  ADDRESS 


ENTITLED 


Our  Recent  Debts  to  Vivisection. 


BY 


CAROLINE  EARLE  WHITE, 

Vice-President  of  thb  American  Society  for  the  Restriction  of  Vivisection. 


SECOND    EDITION. 


PHILADELPHIA : 

"AMERICAN  SOCIETY  FOR  THE  RESTRICTION  OF  VIVISECTION," 
No.  1002  Walnut  Street. 

1886. 
RE  MOV I 


1706  Chestnut 


AN  ANSWER 


TO 


DR.  KEEN'S  ADDRESS 


ENTITLED 


Our  Recent  Debts  to  Vivisection. 


BY 


CAROLINE  EARLE  WHITE, 

Vice-President  of  the  American  Society  for  the  Restriction  of  Vivisection. 


SECOND    EDITION. 


PHILADELPHIA : 

"AMERICAN  SOCIETY  FOR  THE  RESTRICTION  OF  VIVISECTION, 
No.  1002  Walnut  Street. 

1886. 


PRESS     OF     WM.     F.     FELL     A     CO., 
1223-24    SANSOM     STREET, 

PHILADELPHIA. 


AN  ANSWER  TO  DR.   KEEN'S  ADDRESS 


"Our  Recent  Debts  to  Vivisection." 


To  the  Graduates  at  the  Twenty-third  Commencement  of  the  Woman 's 

Medical  College  of  Pennsylvania  : — 

Having  accidentally,  a  few  days  ago,  been  led  to  take  up  and  read 
the  address  delivered  before  you  by  Professor  Keen,  on  the  occasion  of 
your  graduation,  I  feel  a  strong  desire  to  state  to  you  some  of  the 
facts  on  the  other  side,  and  to  show  you  how  illusory  I,  as  well  as  those 
connected  with  me  in  the  Anti-Vivisection  agitation,  consider  his 
claim  to  a  long  list  of  benefits  derived,  within  the  last  twenty-five 
years,  from  experiments  upon  animals. 

I  am  not,  it  is  true,  a  student  or  graduate  of  medicine;  but  the 
fact  that  I  am,  in  the  first  place,  one  of  your  own  sex,  interested 
as  you  are  in  the  advancement  of  true  science,  and  in  the  pro- 
gress of  the  human  race ;  that,  secondly,  I  was  one  of  the  first  origina- 
tors of  the  American  Society  for  the  Restriction  of  Vivisection  (the 
only  such  Association  in  existence  in  the  United  States)  ;  and  that, 
thirdly,  for  years  I  have  given  this  subject  of  experimentation  upon 
animals  careful  and  serious  study,  reading  without  reserve  both  sides 
of  the  question,  will,  I  hope,  entitle  what  I  now  say  to  respectful  con- 
sideration at  your  hands. 

Dr.  Keen  begins  with  stating  the  axiom  that  medicine  must  either 
grow  worse,  stand  still,  or  grow  better,  and  that  as  we  all  naturally 
desire  it  to  grow  better  we  must  perform  experiments  upon  some  liv- 
ing body ;  "  that  in  many  cases  these  experiments  involve  great  risk 
' '  to  life  or  health,  and  that  as  here  they  can  not  and  must  not  be 
"  tested  first  upon  man,  the  only  alternative  we  have  is  to  try  them 
"upon  the  lower  animals;  and  that  we  should  be  most  unwise,  nay, 
"  cruel,  both  to  man  and  to  animals,  if  we  refused  to  pain  or  even  to 
"  slay,  a  few  animals  that  thousands,  both  of  men  and  of  animals,  might 
"live." 

Here,  at  once,  I  begin  to  take  issue  with  Dr.  Keen,  and  to  this 
premise  I  decidedly  object :  first,  to  its  wording,  because  I  do  not  con- 
sider it  correctly  stated  ;  secondly,  to  its  argument,  which  is,  in  my 
opinion,  fallacious. 

3 


I  think  his  expression,  "  to  pain  or  even  slay  "  a  few  animals,  decid- 
edly an  inverted  climax,  and  would  substitute  for  it  "to  slay  or  even 
to  torture,"  since  we  do  not  object  to  the  slaying  of  animals,  when 
by  so  doing  we  can  derive  undoubted  benefit  for  mankind ;  but  it  is 
the  torture,  or  as  the  Doctor  terms  it,  the  "pain,"  against  which  we 
protest,  considering  it  a  far  greater  evil  than  death,  and  in  fact  involving 
death,  as  a  general  thing,  since  we  have  scarcely  ever  heard  of  an 
animal  which  was  made  the  subject  of  severe  experimentation  and  then 
allowed  to  recover  and  live. 

For  Dr.  Keen's  expression  of  a  "few"  animals,  I  should  like  to 
substitute  "millions." 

It  is  a  favorite  euphemism  with  vivisectors  and  the  advocates  of 
vivisection  to  say  a  "  few  "  animals.  Is  it  not  better,  they  almost  in- 
variably ask,  that  a  few  animals  should  suffer,  than  that  the  human 
race  should  be  deprived  of  any  advantage  that  it  is  possible  to  obtain  ? 
Allow  me  to  give  you  some  idea  of  what  is  implied  in  the  term  "  a  few 
animals. ' ' 

Dr.  Schiff,  the  eminent  Vivisector,  during  his  residence  in  Florence, 
of  ten  years,  is  generally  stated  to  have  killed  in  his  experiments  four- 
teen thousand  dogs.  The  Vivisector,  Flourens,  in  his  own  writings, 
says:  "  Magendie  sacrificed  4000  dogs  to  prove  the  correctness  of 
Sir  Charles  Bell's  views  with  regard  to  the  distinction  of  the  sensitive 
and  motor  nerves ;  he  then  sacrificed  4000  more  to  prove  these  views 
erroneous.  I  took  up  the  experiments  in  my  turn,  and  demonstrated 
the  first  opinion  to  be  the  right  one  ;  in  order  to  arrive  at  my  results  I 
also  vivisected  a  great  number  of  dogs." 

If  four  vivisectors  alone  can  thus  be  shown  to  have  put  to  death 
about  twenty-five  thousand  animals,  some  ten  thousand  of  which  were 
in  one  single  series  of  experiments,  and  those  some  of  the  most  terrible 
that  can  be  imagined,  since  they  were  made  on  the  nerves,  is  it 
too  much  to  say  that  all  that  have  been  offered  up  on  what  are 
called  by  physiologists  the  "bloodless  altars  "  of  Science,  since 
these  experiments  first  began  may  correctly  be  represented  by  the 
term  millions  ? 

I  take  issue  with  Dr.  Keen,  in  the  second  place,  where  he  says  "these 
experiments  can  not,  nay,  they  must  not,  be  tested  first  upon  man." 
I  assert,  on  the  contrary,  that  in  the  majority  of  cases  they  must  be 
tested  first  upon  man,  or  not  tested  at  all,  because,  no  important  de- 
ductions can  ever  be  drawn,  with  any  degree  of  certainty,  from  experi- 
ments upon  animals,  since  in  some  inexplicable  way  their  construction 
is  so  different  from  that  of  man.  I  can  cite  no  better  instance  of  this 
fact  than  that  given  by  Lawson  Tait,  one  of  the  most  celebrated  Eng- 


lish  surgeons,  who  claims  that  Vivisection  has  done  more  harm  than 
good,  at  least  to  surgery,  from  the  very  fact  of  its  leading  to  such 
erroneous  inferences. 

In  a  letter  to  the  Birmingham  Daily  Post,  of  the  12th  of  December, 
1 88 1,  he  says  : — 

"Like  every  member  of  my  profession,  I  was  brought  up  in  the 
belief  that  by  vivisection  had  been  obtained  almost  every  important 
fact  in  physiology,  and  that  many  of  our  most  valued  means  of  saving 
life,  and  diminishing  suffering,  had  resulted  from  experiments  on  the 
lower  animals.  I  now  know  that  nothing  of  the  sort  is  true  con- 
cerning the  art  of  surgery,  and  not  only  do  I  not  believe  that  Vivisec- 
tion has  helped  the  surgeon  one  bit,  but  I  know  that  it  has  often  led 
him  astray. 

"  Very  many  years  ago,  at  the  request  of  my  master,  the  late  Sir  James 
Simpson,  I  undertook  a  series  of  experiments  on  the  lower  animals,  to 
determine  a  doubtful  question  in  the  method  of  closure  of  arteries 
after  surgical  operations.  His  restless  genius  had  incited  him  to 
efforts  for  the  improvement  of  our  means  of  arresting  hemorrhage, 
and  he  introduced  what  he  termed  'acupressure,'  to  replace  the  liga- 
ture. My  experiments  were  conducted  under  the  advice  and  guid- 
ance of  one  of  the  most  eminent  physiologists,  still  alive.  The  poor 
animals,  chiefly  dogs,  were  operated  upon  under  chloroform,  and  were 
spared  as  much  suffering  as  possible.  But,  of  course,  they  suffered, 
and  I  have  often  thought  of  those  poor  dogs  with  bitter  regret. 

"  The  conclusion  of  the  experiments  seemed  absolutely  perfect,  and 
my  observations  were  quoted  far  and  wide,  were  translated  into  foreign 
languages,  and  everything  looked  as  if  '  acupressure  '  was  to  reform 
the  art  of  surgery.  It  did  not ;  it  speedily  died  out,  and  has  been,  I 
think,  almost  forgotten.  The  explanation  of  this  lay  in  the  simple 
fact  that  the  closure  of  a  dog's  artery  is  altogether  a  different  process 
from  that  seen  in  the  human  vessel,  and  my  experiments  were  not  only 
needless,  but  they  were  absolutely  misleading.  Simpson's  inquiry,  as 
we  all  know  now,  was  altogether  in  the  wrong  direction,  and  the  per- 
fection to  which  this  part  of  our  art  has  been  brought  has  not  been 
obtained  by  the  aid  of  vivisection,  but  actually  in  spite  of  it. 

"  Here,  then,  is  the  great  difficulty,  an  '  a  priori''  one,  but,  so  far  as  I 
can  see,  absolutely  insurmountable.  If  we  cannot  apply  the  facts  ob- 
served in  so  simple  a  matter  as  the  closure  of  an  artery,  from  the  dog 
to  man,  how  can  we,  in  reason,  apply  facts  from  the  same  sources  in  so 
difficult  and  complicated  a  subject  as  the  action  of  the  brain,  etc.?" 

On  another  occasion  he  says,  "  I  venture  to  prophesy  that  every  un- 
prejudiced practitioner  of  medicine  and  surgery,  if  he  will  investigate 


the  matter,  will  have  an  awakening  of  conscience  such  as  took  place  in 
my  case,  and  will  begin  to  doubt  the  propriety  of  cruel  experimenta- 
tion upon  animals." 

Dr.  Keen  speaks  at  length  of  the  value  of  experimenting  upon  ani- 
mals to  ascertain  the  effect  of  drugs  and  poisons,  which  surprises  me, 
since  in  no  respect  are  erroneous  deductions  more  likely  to  be  made 
than  in  these  same  experiments.  It  is  true  that  the  action  of  these 
substances  upon  men  and  the  lower  animals  may  sometimes  be  analo- 
gous, but  no  matter  what  experiments  were  made  in  the  hydrochlorate 
of  cocaine  upon  the  animals  mentioned  by  Dr.  Keen,  they  were  abso- 
lutely inconclusive  as  regards  man  until  the  crucial  experiment  was 
made  upon  the  latter.  Therefore,  in  trying  the  hydrochlorate  of 
cocaine  first  upon  dogs  or  cats,  they  did  not  avoid  any  risk  to 
man,  for  they  could  not  tell  how  man  would  be  affected  thereby.  In 
their  general  effect  upon  the  system,  the  action  of  powerful  and  poison- 
ous drugs,  moreover,  is  often  so  different  in  men  and  animals  that  ex- 
periments upon  the  latter  form  a  most  misleading  method  of  research. 
You  have,  doubtless,  all  heard  of  how  many  substances  that  are  poi- 
sonous to  man  are  innocuous  to  certain  animals ;  how  horses  can  take 
large  quantities  of  antimony,  dogs  mercury,  goats  tobacco,  mice  hem- 
lock, and  rabbits  belladonna,  with  perfect  impunity. 

Supposing  that  any  physiologist,  reasoning  after  Dr.  Keen's  fashion, 
and  having  tried  belladonna  upon  rabbits  or  mercury  upon  dogs, 
should  have  given  these  substances,  without  any  hesitation,  to  human 
beings,  would  not  the  consequences  have  been  much  more  deplorable 
than  trying  the  hydrochlorate  of  cocaine  upon  the  eye  of  a  man  before 
testing  it  upon  an  animal  ? 

There  are  other  instances,  not  so  well  known,  of  the  different  action 
of  certain  poisons  upon  the  system  of  men  and  animals. 

One  of  the  most  remarkable  is  that  mentioned  by  Dr.  Livingstone, 
in  his  account  of  the  Tse-tse  fly,  found  in  Central  Africa. 

"  The  bite  of  this  poisonous  insect,"  he  says  "  is  certain  death  to  the 
"  ox,  horse  or  dog.  The  mule,  ass  and  goat  enjoy  the  same  immunity 
"  from  the  Tse-tse  as  man  and  game.  Many  large  tribes  on  the  Zam- 
"  besi  can  keep  no  domestic  animals,  except  the  goat,  in  consequence 
"  of  the  scourge  existing  in  their  country.  Our  children  were  bitten, 
"  yet  suffered  no  harm,  and  we  saw  around  us  numbers  of  zebras,  buffa- 
"  loes,  pigs,  pallahs  and  other  antelopes,  feeding  quietly  in  the  very 
"  habitat  of  the  fly.  There  is  not  so  much  difference  in  the  nature  of 
"  the  horse  and  zebra, the  buffalo  and  ox, the  sheep  and  antelope,  as  to 
"afford  any  satisfactory  explanation  of  the  phenomenon." 

Dr.  Abiathar  Wall,   in  his  essay  upon  Vivisection — from  which  I 


have  made  the  extract — when  speaking  of  this,  says,  "  It  seems  strange 
that  two  members  of  the  same  family,  though  of  different  genera 
(e.g.,  the  horse  and  zebra),  should  be  so  unequally  affected  by  the  same 
poison — the  one  being  certain  to  die,  the  other  escaping  scathless  ; 
but  it  serves  to  show  that  the  difference  of  structure  in  genera  of  the 
same  family,  implies  a  difference  of  physiological  action.  Hence  this 
affords  one  more  illustration  of  the  danger  of  generalizing  from  experi- 
ments made  on  animals,  even  if  claiming  a  sort  of  kinship.  If,  then, 
animals  presenting  but  slight  differences  between  each  other  behave 
so  differently  under  the  action  of  a  poison,  what  must  the  gap  be 
between  them  and  man  ? 

"  Had  the  action  of  the  Tse-tse  poison  been  unknown  in  Africa,  and 
had  it  been  sent  home  to  be  experimented  upon,  with  the  result  of 
fully  establishing  its  lethal  effect  upon  the  horse  and  dog,  we  should 
have  been  told  that  it  was,  therefore,  a  poison  to  man  !  This  would 
be  an  utterly  wrong  conclusion,  but  would  amply  demonstrate  the 
folly  of  arguing  from  the  lower  animals  to  human  beings." 

How  different  is  this  incertitude  and  vagueness  of  results  from  the 
satisfaction  that  attends  the  performance  of  experiments  upon  man, 
when  they  can  be  properly  and  safely  tried.  Divine  Providence  has, 
we  believe,  ordained  that  in  some  of  the  many  accidents  which  so 
often,  unhappily,  befall  mankind,  a  legitimate  means  can  be  afforded 
for  wresting  the  secrets  of  Nature  from  her  grasp  and  increasing  our 
knowledge  of  physiology.  How  much  greater  was  the  knowledge 
obtained  of  the  digestive  organs  and  the  process  of  digestion  by  the 
accident  which  happened  to  Alexis  St.  Martin,  than  by  all  the  experi- 
ments upon  animals  that  had  ever  been  made  ! 

And  yet,  in  the  face  of  this  fact,  Dr.  Keen  exclaims :  ;'  But  Nature's 
"  experiments  are  rarely  ever  limited  in  area,  or  uncomplicated  :  they 
"  are  never  systematic  or  exhaustive;  it  takes  years  to  collect  a  fair 
"  number  of  her  clumsy  experiments ;  and  the  knowledge  is  diffused 
"  through  many  minds,  instead  of  being  centered  in  one  that  will  sys- 
"  tematize  the  results." 

Next  on  the  list  of  benefits  arising  from  Vivisection,  Dr.  Keen  men- 
tions the  improvement  in  the  treatment  of  gunshot  wounds  in  the 
abdomen,  by  making  an  opening  therein,  and  treating,  by  appropriate 
surgical  methods,  the  wounded  places ;  sometimes  even  going  so  far  as 
to  remove  a  piece  of  the  bowel,  and  uniting  the  cut  ends. 

This  improvement  he  specifically  attributes  to  the  result  of  experi- 
ments which  Dr.  Parkes,  of  Chicago,  made  upon  thirty-seven  dogs,  that 
were  etherized,  then  wounded  by  shooting,  the  abdomen  opened  and 
the  wounds  treated  in  a  proper  manner.     He  does  not,  however,  ap- 


pear  to  regard  it  as  at  all  material  to  his  argument  that  similar  experi- 
ments were  made  by  Professor  Gross  over  forty  years  ago,  and  the 
same  deductions  drawn  therefrom.*  Is  not  this  fact  enough  to  con- 
vince any  one  "  in  sana  mente"  of  the  necessity  of  some  restriction  of 
Vivisection  ? 

This  same  claim  which  Dr.  Keen  makes,  was  advanced  in  an  edito- 
rial published  in  the  Philadelphia  Times  on  the  28th  of  last  July,  and 
which  I  answered  at  that  time,  my  answer  being  inserted  in  the  Times 
of  August  4th. 

In  it  I  urged  that  the  experiments  upon  the  dogs  were  not  of  the 
least  use,  since  they,  in  common  with  many  of  the  lower  animals,  are 
not  liable  to  peritonitis  in  cases  where  the  peritoneum  is  cut  or  rup- 
tured, f  and  that  as  the  great  danger  to  man  in  such  cases  arises  from 
his  extreme  liability  to  peritonitis,  no  deductions  of  value  could 
be  drawn  from  experiments  upon  dogs.  I  said  that  Dr.  Parkes,  of 
Chicago,  might  have  vivisected  thirty-seven  dogs,  as  reported,  or  thirty- 
seven  thousand  ;  the  experiment  when  tried  upon  man  for  the  first  time 
was  just  as  much  of  an  experiment  as  if  no  dog  had  ever  been  touched, 
therefore,  Dr.  Parkes'  experiments,  like  most  of  those  in  Vivisection, 
were  entirely  unnecessary,  doubly  unnecessary,  I  should  now  say,  since, 
as  I  before  mentioned,  similar  ones  had  already  been  performed  by  Dr. 
Gross.  Dr.  Henry  J.  Bigelow,  the  eminent  surgeon  of  Boston,  to 
whom  I  showed  my  answer,  confirmed  my  argument  and  my  state- 
ments in  all  respects,  except  that  he  thought  I  had  overrated  the  immu- 
nity of  dogs  from  peritonitis,  as  it  is  possible,  he  said,  for  them  to  have 
that  disease,  although  it  occurs  very,  very  rarely.  While  there  may 
be  some  physiologists  who  differ  from  this,  the  weight  of  evidence  is 
incontestably  on  the  side  of  the  statement  that  dogs  enjoy  almost  en- 
tire immunity  from  that  painful  disease. 

The  same  argument  applies  exactly  to  the  next  claim  of  importance 
on  Dr.  Keen's  list,  which  is  that  of  the  improvements  in  ovariotomy, 
owing  to  Sir  Spencer  Wells'  experiments  upon  what  Dr.  Keen  is  pleased 
to  call  a  "few  dogs,"  but  which  were  in  reality  a  good  many  rabbits 
and  guinea  pigs.  Dr.  Abiathar  Wall,  in  his  essay  upon  Vivisection, 
when  speaking  of  these  experiments  says :  "  Now,  according  to  the 
Lancet  (September  29th,   1877),  the  animals  used  for  these  experi- 

*  Medical  News,  May  3d,  1884. 

t  The  peritoneum,  the  covering  and  enveloping  membrane  of  all  the  organs  in  the  body,  is  in  man 
particularly  liable  to  inflammation,  even  by  slight  puncture  or  abrasion  ;  and  its  inflammation  consti- 
tutes one  of  the  most  painful,  dangerous  and  mortal  accidents  known  to  the  medical  profession.  But 
in  animals,  and  even  in  a  creature  so  highly  developed  as  the  dog,  the  incision  and  violent  rupture  of 
this  membrane  is  attended  with  no  inflammatory  danger. — Dr.  Anna  Kingsford,  in  the  Nineteenth 
Century,  February,  1882. 


9 

ments  'enjoy  immunity  from  severe  peritonitis,'*  hence  it  is  open 
to  doubt  as  to  whether  the  results  obtained  could  be  made  applicable 
to  human  beings,  who  are  eminently  liable  to  this  form  of  inflamma- 
tion." 

Another  fact  that  Dr.  Wall  mentions  in  disproof  of  the  claim  that 
Sir  Spencer  Wells'  experiments  resulted  in  any  benefit  is,  that  the  mor- 
tality in  his  subsequent  ovarian  operations  was  scarcely  lessened  for 
several  years.  "In  the  first  hundred  cases  the  mortality  was  34  per 
"  cent.,  whereas  in  all  previous  cases  that  could  be  collected  the  mor- 
"  tality  was  only  33.89  per  cent." 

In  the  first  five  years,  according  to  the  statistics  of  Mr.  Spencer 
Wells'  own  cases,  about  one  in  three  died;  in  the  next  ten,  about  one 
in  four ;  in  the  next  five  years,  about  one  in  five ;  but  in  the  last  two 
years  about  one  in  ten.  "From  these  data  it  is  evident,"  says  Dr. 
Wall,  "  that  the  diminution  of  mortality  has  been  gradual,  whereas, 
"  had  the  knowledge  obtained  by  Vivisection  been  true, we  ought  nat- 
"  urally  to  have  expected  to  have  had  an  immediate  and  rapid  fatlm 
"  the  death  rate.  The  first  mortality  is  somewhere  about  34  per  cent., 
"  the  present  is  about  10  per  cent.,  and  it  has  taken  twenty  years  to 
"  produce  this  satisfactory  result." 

To  refer  again  to  Lawson  Tait :  In  a  speech  made  at  the  annual 
meeting  of  the  Anti- Vivisection  Society,  in  London,  in  the  year  1882, 
he  said  :  "I  follow  the  line  of  practice  in  which  Spencer  Wells  made 
"  such  a  reputation.  I  remember  the  statement  made  by  the  Bishop 
"  of  Peterborough,  in  the  House  of  Lords,  that  some  of  Spencer  Wells' 
"experiments  had  contributed  to  medical  advancement  (alluding  to 
"  the  same  experiments  of  which  Dr.  Keen  speaks),  but  that  statement 
"  was  as  childish  and  incorrect  as  anything  could  be.  I  am  speaking 
"on  matters  of  fact  within  the  compass  of  my  own  daily  life,  matters 
"  on  which  I  am  in  the  position  to  speak  as  authoritatively  as  any  man 
"in  this  country,  and  I  say  that  nothing  could  be  more  childish  and 
"  incorrect  than  that  statement." 

From  this  it  appears  that  there  exists  a  difference  of  opinion  between 
Dr.  Keen  and  Lawson  Tait  as  to  the  value  of  Vivisection  in  the  opera- 
tions of  Ovariotomy  ;  which  of  the  two  is  the  better  qualified  to  speak 
upon  this  subject,  I  will  not  attempt  to  decide. 

The  next  debt  which  we  owe  to  Vivisection,  according  to  Dr.  Keen, 
is  the  improved  treatment  of  sunstroke,  resulting  from  Dr.  Horatio  C. 
Wood's  experiments  upon  animals.  As  this  was  answered  at  the  time 
by  Dr.  Owen  Wister,  most  satisfactorily,  I  merely  append  his  answer: 

*It  is  only  fair  to  say  that  one  physiologist,  at  least,  differs  from  the  London  Lancet  in  the  opinion 
that  rabbits  cannot  have  peritonitis. 


10 

For  the  Public  Ledger : — 

Mr.  Editor  ; — Will  you  kindly  give  me  space  to  say  a  few  words  in 
reply  to  some  comments  on  Dr.  Keen's  address  at  the  Commencement 
of  the  Woman's  Medical  College,  which  appeared  in  your  issue  of  the 
1 2th  instant?  * 

In  speaking  of  the  experiments  made  with  heat  on  living  animals  in 
Philadelphia,  Dr.  Keen  is  stated  to  have  said  that  the  animals  were 
exposed  to  a  heat  no  greater  than  that  to  which  outdoor  laborers  are 
subjected  in  Summer.  Dr.  Keen  omitted  to  mention  that  in  those  ex- 
periments the  heads  of  cats  and  rabbits  were  exposed,  by  means  of  a 
skull-cap,  to  a  stream  of  water  at  a  temperature  of  1750  to  1900.  We 
should  be  glad  to  know  under  what  circumstances  similar  conditions 
occur  in  nature.  It  is  proper  to  state,  in  the  interest  of  truth,  that 
these  investigations  did  not  add  one  fact  to  our  knowledge  of  the 
pathology  of  sunstroke,  nor  one  suggestion  to  our  method  of  treating 
it.  In  fact,  there  is  no  stronger  argument  against  the  usefulness  of 
vivisection  than  the  researches  to  which  Dr.  Keen  refers. 

March  12th,  1885.  Owen  J.  Wister.* 

Dr.  Keen  next  mentions  that  in  India  alone  twenty  thousand  human 
beings  die  annually  from  snake  bites,  and,  as  yet,  no  antidote  has  been 
discovered.  "  How  can  we  search  intelligently  for  an  antidote,"  he 
asks,  "  until  we  know  accurately  the  effects  of  the  poison  ?  " 

The  answer  that  suggests  itself  to  me,  is  very  different  from  the  one 
which  he  makes.  I  should  reply  that,  in  order  to  find  out  the  effects 
of  the  poison,  and  to  search  also  for  an  antidote,  the  best  plan  would 
be  for  the  experimenters  to  go  to  India,  where  they  could  find  as  large 
a  field  for  investigation  as  they  require,  in  the  poor  victims  themselves. 
Here  is  an  opportunity,  such  as  is  not  often  afforded,  of  experimenting 
upon  human  beings,  since,  as  they  would  infallibly  die  from  the  snake 
bites,  there  can  be  no  objection  to  trying  upon  them  every  variety  of 
antidote  that  can  be  discovered.  Nothing  seems  to  me  less  defensible 
than  these  experiments  in  the  poison  of  snake  bites  upon  animals,  since 
it  is  the  one  case  in  which  they  could  be  observed  with  so  much  satis- 
faction and  certainty  upon  men.  It  is  true  that  it  would  require  a 
journey  to  India,  since  the  deaths  from  snake  bites  are  generally  all  in 
that  country;  but  should  these  benefactors  of  the  human  race,  as  Dr. 
Keen  considers  them,  who  have  sacrificed  for  this  end  the  God-given 


*  There  are  two  more  letters  in  the  correspondence,  one  from  Dr.  Keen  in  answer  to  the  above, 
and  another  from  Dr.  Wister,  but  as  they  leave  the  subject  very  much  in  the  same  position  that  it  is 
at  the  end  of  this  first  letter,  we  do  not  think  it  worth  while  to  add  them  to  an  article  so  much  longer 
than  we  at  first  intended. 


11 

sentiments  of  pity  and  compassion  for  helpless  brutes,  hesitate  to  make 
the  extra  sacrifice  of  a  temporary  residence  in  India?    Another  reason, 
moreover,  why  these  investigations  should  not  be  continued  upon  ani- 
mals, is  the  extreme  uncertainty  as  to  whether  any  antidote  will  ever 
be  found  that  will  prove  available,  no  matter  upon  whom  or  upon  what 
the  experiments  are  tried.       Dr.  Alfred  Swayne  Taylor,  Fellow  of  the 
Royal  College  of  Physicians,  Lecturer  on  Medical  Jurisprudence  and 
Toxicology  at  Guy's  Hospital,  author  of  works  on  Poisons  and  Medi- 
cal Jurisprudence,  in  his  examination  before  the  English  Royal  Com- 
mission to  investigate  the  subject  of  vivisection,  was  asked  the  ques- 
tion, "Do  you  imagine  that  experiments  are  likely  to  do  much  good 
for  that  purpose  "  (z.  e.,  of  obtaining  an  antidote  for  snake  bites)?   He 
replied,  "  No,  I  do  not.      I  have  read  them  all  with  great  care.     Am- 
'  monia  has  been  recommended  by  Dr.  Halford,  in  Australia,  but  this 
'  has  proved  utterly  inefficient  when  the  experiments  have  been  fairly 
'  performed  ;  and,  in  truth,  if  you  consider  for  a  moment  the  mode 
'  of  death  from  poison,  you  will  see  how  difficult  it  is  for  any  antidote 
'  by  injection  to  operate.     The  poison  rapidly   gets  into  the  blood ; 
'  when  in  the  blood  it  alters  this  fluid,  and  unless  the  remedy  proposed 
'  enters  into  the  blood  quite  as  quickly,  and  very  soon  after  the  poison 
'  has  entered,  no  good  can  be  done.     There  may  be  some  slowly  ope- 
'  rating  poisons,  but  with  regard  to  serpent  poison,  when  it  once  enters 
'  the  blood,  the  effect  is  most  extraordinary  ;  the  rapidity  of  death  is 
'  very  great  indeed." 

Dr.  Keen  next  speaks  of  anaesthetics  (the  most  important  of  which, 
viz.,  ether  and  chloroform,  have  certainly  not  been  discovered  by 
means  of  experiments  upon  animals,  but  on  human  beings),  and  says 
that  the  ideal  anaesthetic,  which  will  abolish  pain  without  abolishing 
consciousness,  will  surely  be  found,  if  experiments  upoYi  animals  are 
continued.  This  prediction,  referring  to  something  in  the  dim  future, 
is  not,  of  course,  susceptible  of  disproof,  so  I  pass  it  by,  as  I  should  if 
Dr.  Keen  predicted  that,  by  means  of  these  same  experiments,  the 
elixir  of  life  would  be  discovered. 

The  next  instance  that  he  mentions  is  where  Simon,  of  Heidelberg, 
wished  to  remove  one  of  the  kidneys  from  a  woman  under  his  charge, 
but  feared  to  do  so,  as  no  one  had  ever  removed  a  healthy  kidney,  Dr. 
Keen  says.,  and  no  one  had  tested  which  was  the  best  method  of  reach- 
ing the  kidney,  whether  by  the  abdomen  or  the  loin,  etc.,  so  he  experi- 
mented upon  a  number  of  dogs,  and  then  removed  the  kidney  from 
his  patient,  and  saved  her  life.  It  seems  strange  that  he  could  find  out 
how  to  reach  the  kidney  in  a  human  being  from  trying  the  same  opera- 
tion upon  a  dog,  when  the  construction  of  a  quadruped  and  man  is 


12 

necessarily  so  different.  Moreover,  if,  as  Dr.  Keen  tells  us,  a  diseased 
kidney  had  been  removed  from  a  human  being  several  times,  why  should 
Simon,  of  Heidelberg,  object  to  removing  a  healthy  kidney  ?  The  risk 
would  seem  much  less  in  the  latter  than  in  the  former  case,  and  if  Dr. 
Keen  has  no  better  excuse  than  this  to  urge  for  the  performance  -of 
experiments  upon  animals,  he  is  even  in  a  worse  case  than  I  thought 
him. 

He  next  comes  to  Ferrier's  experiments  upon  the  brains  of 
monkeys,  "  basing  his  conclusions  on  which,  Dr.  Hughes  Bennett," 
he  says,  "  about  a  year  ago,  diagnosticated  a  small  tumor  on  the  sur- 
face of  the  brain,  involving  the  centre  of  motion  for  the  muscles  of 
the  hand." 

That  the  result  of  Ferrier's  experiments  are  so  entirely  to  be 
depended  upon  as  Dr.  Keen  would  have  us  believe,  is  not  admitted 
by  all  scientists.  In  a  paper  published  by  an  Italian  Professor,  Mar- 
cacci,  in  the  second  volume  of  "  Arshives  Italiennes  de  Biologie,"and 
announced  to  be  the  work  of  the  laboratory  of  the  Sorbonne,  he 
sets  himself  to  solve  the  following  problem:  "To  find  whether  the 
"  results  obtained  by  experimenting  on  animals — especially  by  the  abla- 
"  tion  of  the  motor  zones — are  in  harmony  with  bedside  observation, 
'*  and  further  to  test  whether  these  last  are  always  identical,  and 
"  whether  it  be  possible  to  draw  a  conclusion  as  to  any  definite  locali- 
"  zation  in  the  human  brain.  The  record  of  Professor  Marcacci's 
"observations  is  most  elaborate,  and  occupies  twenty  pages.  Cases 
"  which  ought  to  have  corresponded  with  and  verified  Professor  Fer- 
"  rier's  conclusions,  respecting  the  localization  of  the  motor  centres  of 
"  the  arms,  face,  leg  and  half  body,  are  numerously  cited  from  French, 
f<  English  and  American  medical  papers,  and  the  following  are  speci- 
"  mens  of  the' results  which  Professor  Marcacci  reaches  : — 

"The  cases  of  brachial  monospasm  hitherto  reported  do  not  serve 
"  in  the  slightest  degree  to  establish  the  localization  of  the  motor  centre 
"  of  the  arms,  especially  if  we  accept  Ferrier's  scheme  (p.  85). 

"  Here  are  two  cases  which,  though  reported  by  Ferrier,  are  simply 
"against  him  (p.  85). 

"  That  it  is  possible  to  have  facial  paralysis  without  the  lesion  which 
"  Ferrier  indicated,  we  have  already  seen.  .  .  .  Here  are  two  cases 
"  in  which  the  lesions  occupied  precisely  the  seat  indicated  by  Ferrier, 
"  but  in  which  there  was  no  paralysis  of  the  face  whatever  (p.  89). 

"  After  citing  many  more  such  failures,  Professor  Marcacci  remarks, 
"  We  might  continue  thus  indefinitely,  and  we  should  find  in  all  cases 
"  as  little  exactitude.  .  .  ."  He  proceeds  to  criticise  Ferrier's  doc- 
"  trine  of  the  latent  zone,  and  refers  to  167  cases,  of  which  the  majority 


13 

"  seem  to  refuse  most  positively  to  fit  Professor  Ferrier's  theory,  on  any 
"  plea  whatever.  In  conclusion  (p.  ioo),  Professor  Marcacci  lays 
"  down  the  following  results  of  his  exhaustive  inquiries :  — 

"  i.  That  pathological  observations  do  not  authorize  us  to  admit 
"  motor  centres  in  the  human  brain. 

"2.  That  hemiplegia  of  cortical  origin  may  arise  from  various 
"lesions,  and  not  only  from  that  of  the  common  centre. 

"3.  That  lesions  of  the  'latent  zone'  may  occasion  motor  troubles, 
"  and  lesions  of  the  '  motor  zone  '  occasion  nothing  of  the  kind  ;  in 
"other  words,  that  the  'motor  zone  '  may  be  latent  and  the  'latent 
"  zone  '  be  motor."* 

This  view — that  the  so-called  "  motor  zone  "  is  not  really  motor — 
has  recently  been  reaffirmed  by  Vulpian,f  while  it  is  well  known  that 
so  eminent  an  authority  as  Brown-Sequard  is  quite  opposed  to  the 
current  tendency,  to  premature  application  of  the  localization  theory 
to  diagnosis  of  brain  tumors. 

Now,  with  regard  to  the  removal  of  the  brain  tumor  from  the  patient 
in  the  London  Hospital  for  Epilepsy  and  Paralysis — which  is  announced 
with  such  a  flourish  of  trumpets  by  Dr.  Keen,  as  being  due  to  the 
vivisectional  experiments  of  Ferrier — if  he  had  wished  to  come  over 
to  our  side,  and  advocate  the  fallacy  of  conclusions  drawn  from  these 
experiments,  he  could  scarcely  have  done  so  more  effectually  than  in 
citing  this  case,  since  the  physicians  who  removed  the  tumor,  did  not 
find  it  where  it  was  stated  to  be  by  Dr.  Hughes  Bennett,  who  made 
his  diagnosis  on  the  basis  of  Ferrier's  experiments.  The  London 
Lancet  of  November  29th,  1884,  says,  when  speaking  of  the  case, 
"  The  tumor  was  diagnosed  as  lying  in  the  upper  part  of  the  fissure  of 
Rolando,  but  was  subsequently  found  under  the  gray  matter  of  the 
ascending  frontal  convolution,"  the  one  place  being  separated  from 
the  other  by  at  least  the  whole  breadth  of  the  anterior  ascending 
parietal  convolution. 

Moreover,  the  patient  from  whom  the  tumor  was  removed,  soon 
afterward  died,  so  that  in  no  light  can  the  affair  be  considered  any- 
thing but  an  utter  failure ;  yet  this,  we  are  told,  is  one  of  the  debts 
that  we  owe  to  vivisection. 

The  editor  of  the  Philadelphia  Medical  Times,  when  speaking 
of  this  case,  in  an  editorial  published  about  a  year  ago,  says,  "It 
"  would  be  a  bold  surgeon  who  would  operate  in  a  case,  with  nothing 
"more  to  guide  him  than  the  information  afforded  by  the  study  of 
"  motor  centres  in  the  brain  made  by  Hitzig  and  Ferrier — especially 

*  Zoophilist,  October,  1883.  f  Medical  Times,  June  27th,  1885. 


14 

"  if  he  were  at  all  familiar  with  the  writings  of  Brown-Sequard  upon 
"  the  same  subject."* 

Dr.  Keen  next  proceeds  to  speak  of  the  labors  of  Koch,  Pasteur 
and  others,  in  the  experimental  study  of  the  minute  organisms  called 
microbes,  and  of  the  theory  of  Koch,  that  consumption  is  caused  by 
the  "  bacillus  tuberculosis  "  and  cholera  by  the  "  comma  bacillus." 
This  last  alleged  discovery  has  been  received  with  considerable  doubt 
by  the  scientific  world  from  the  moment  of  its  publication,  and  the 
investigations  made  during  the  late  cholera  epidemic  in  Europe,  have 
tended  to  greatly  weaken  the  little  faith  yet  remaining  in  its  proba- 
bility. Dr.  Keen  himself  says  that  Koch's  views  have  met  with  the 
"opposition  of  prominent  scientists."  How,  then,  if  there  is  such  in- 
certitude as  to  their  reliability,  can  he  claim  them  as  one  of  "our 
recent  debts  to  vivisection  "  ?  As  to  the  "classic  "  experiments,  as 
Dr.  Keen  calls  them,  of  Thiersch,  in  1853,  in  inoculating  mice  with 
choleraic  discharges,  what  had  they  to  do  with  the  "comma  bacil- 
lus," or  of  what  use  were  they?  Did  not  all  physicians  know,  prior 
to  that  time,  that  if  unwholesome  and  impure  matter  was  taken  into 
the  system,  the  result  would  be  either  to  sicken  or  to  kill  the  organiza- 
tion receiving  it,  whether  that  of  man  or  of  the  lower  animals  ?  But 
to  return  to  the  alleged  discoveries  of  Koch ;  admitting  them  to  be 
true,  how  little  good  have  they  accomplished.  With  regard  to  his 
well-known  theory  of  the  microbe  called  the  bacillus  tuberculosis,  as 
the  cause  of  consumption,  all  that  even  Dr.  Keen  himself  can  show,  as 
already  resulting  from  his  discoveries,  is  that  "they  have  enabled 
us  to  recognize,  by  the  microscope,  doubtful  cases  in  their  earlier  and 
more  remediable  stages,  and  have  made  certain  what  was  hitherto  only 
a  probability,  viz.,  that  consumption  is  distinctly  contagious."  That 
they  have  taught  us  anyway  of  lessening  the  mortality  from  this  dread 
disease,  I  have  never  seen  stated.  These  results — admitting  that  they 
are  reliable — do  not  seem  to  us  of  enough  grandeur  to  compensate  for 
a  tithe  of  the  sufferings  inflicted  upon  the  animals  used  for  the  experi- 
ments. The  other  great  microbe  discoverer,  Pasteur,  is  open  to  severe 
criticism — or  so,  at  least,  his  fellow-worker,  Koch,  seems  to  think, 
judging  from  an  article  which  was  written  by  him,  and  which  appeared 
in  the  Semaine  Medicale  of  the  21st  and  28th  of  December,  1882. 
In  this  article,  Koch,  who  is  certainly  likely  to  be  better  authority  on 
the  subject  than  any  one  else,  accuses  Pasteur  of  being  a  mere  plagi- 
arist— going  from  Congress  to  Congress  and  Academy  to  Academy,  an- 
nouncing new  diseases  and  germs  as  his  own   discovery,  which  had 

*  Phila.  Medical  Times,  Vol.  xv,  p.  357. 


15 

previously  been  discovered  by  others  and  published  long  before  Pas- 
teur had  done  anything  in  the  same  direction.  As  a  case  in  point,  he 
instances  that  the  working  out  of  the  causation  of  charbon  (splenic 
fever),  which  Pasteur  claims  as  his  own,  and  for  which  he  has  received 
the  highest  honor,  was  really  the  work  of  Koch  himself,  who  had  com- 
pleted and  published  the  whole  account  in  1876,  although  Pasteur's 
first  note  on  the  subject  was  only  published  in  1877.*  The  article  is 
very  long,  and  contains  a  number  of  charges  against  Pasteur,  all  of 
which  appear  to  be  clearly  proven  ;  but  I  think  that  I  have  quoted 
enough  to  weaken  your  confidence  considerably  in  anything  that  Pas- 
teur can  claim  as  one  of  his  discoveries.  It  is  true  that  if  any  real 
benefit  is  gained  for  the  human  race,  it  makes  little  difference  by  whom 
it  is  discovered  ;  but  the  fact  that  Koch  attacks  Pasteur,  and  says  that 
he  has  not  made  any  discoveries  of  importance,  and  that  other  scien- 
tists, notably  your  own  teacher,  Dr.  Formad,  attack  Koch,  and  say 
that  he  is  mistaken  in  his  theories,  and  that  his  conclusions  are  entirely 
incorrect,  ought,  I  should  think,  to  dispose  you  to  reject  what  they 
both  say,  or  to  maintain,  at  least,  that  animals  ought  not  to  be  tortured 
for  the  purpose  of  gaining  results  that  are,  after  all,  so  vague  and 
uncertain. 

After  having  finished  with  the  subject  of  microbes,  Dr.  Keen  intro- 
duces that  of  inoculation,  and  cites  the  experiments  upon  guinea  pigs 
with  the  virus  of  yellow  fever,  by  Mr.  Freire,  of  Rio  Janeiro,  and  his 
subsequent  experiments  upon  himself  and  a  number  of  others,  also  on 
two  hundred  wharf  laborers,  by  inoculation  with  the  attenuated  virus, 
obtained  from  the  guinea  pigs,  which  resulted  most  successfully.  Dr. 
Keen  thinks  that  if  this  method  continue  to  prove  efficacious,  as  he 
believes  it  will,  a  glorious  result  will  follow  during  the  next  epidemic 
of  yellow  fever.  I  am  as  anxious  as  Dr.  Keen  that  something  should 
be  found  to  check  the  ravages  of  yellow  fever,  but  I  will  confess  to 
being  skeptical  as  to  all  these  discoveries  that  involve  the  inoculation 
of  animals  and  the  passage  of  diseases  through  their  bodies  before 
communicating  them  to  the  human  race.  There  are,  as  yet,  but  one 
or  two  well  authenticated  cases  of  Pasteur's  alleged  discovery  of  inocu- 
lation by  the  attenuated  virus  of  rabies  being  applied  to  the  human 
race,  and  it  seems  that  this  discovery  of  inoculation  by  the  attenuated 
virus  of  yellow  fever  has  not  yet  been  proved  to  be  a  success,  to 
more  than  an  extremely  limited  extent.  Does  it  not  seem,  then,  a  little 
premature,  and  therefore  unfair,  for  Dr.  Keen  to  cite  these  among  the 


*  Zoophilist ,  Feb.  ist, 


16 

"debts  that  we  owe  to  Vivisection"  ?  In  view,  too,  of  his  frequent 
sanguine  predictions  that  glorious  results  will  follow  from  certain  real 
or  alleged  discoveries,  I  will  cite  to  you  the  case  of  the  eminent  scien- 
tist, Professor  Tyndall,  and  the  mistake  into  which  he  fell. 

"A  few  years  ago,  he  announced  in  the  London  Times,  that  Dr. 
"Klein  had  just  discovered  the  germs  causing  typhoid  fever  in  the 
"pig,  and  prophesied  with  temerity  that  that  disease  would  soon  be 
"  under  control.  The  sequel  to  the  story  is  that,  after  Klein's  vaunted 
"researches  had  been  published  in  the  Royal  Society's  Transactions, 
"  together  with  a  plate  of  the  morbid  (sic)  organisms,  it  was  found  out 
"  that  these  organisms  consisted  only  of  albumen  coagulated  by  alco- 
'  hoi,  and  Dr.  Klein  was  compelled,  by  the  exposure  of  the  deceptive 
"nature  of  his  germs,  afterwards  to  publish  in  the  'Transactions'  a 
"  recantation  and  withdrawal  of  all  he  had  previously  published,  and 
"Tyndall  had  trumpeted."* 

Dr.  Keen's  list  of  great  discoveries  (?)  does  not  continue  much 
further.  The  only  one  which  he  enters  into  at  length,  and  to  which  I 
propose  to  reply  (as  this  article  has  already  gone  beyond  the  limits 
intended),  is  one  with  which  you  are  all  familiar,  under  the  name  of 
Listerism,  or  the  antiseptic  method.  I  will  here  make  a  last  quota- 
tion from  Lawson  Tait.  If  I  seem  to  have  recourse  often  to  his  writ- 
ings, it  is  because  we  could  have  no  greater. authority  than  he,  in  all 
matters  relating  to  abdominal  surgery.  In  the  early  part  of  the  year 
1882  he  read  a  paper  before  the  Surgical  Society  of  Ireland,  on  "Lis- 
terism," so  long  that  I  can  only  make  a  few  extracts  from  it,  but  these 
may  serve  to  give  you  a  pretty  fair  idea  of  what  his  opinion  is  of  most 
of  the  vaunted  discoveries  of  Sir  Joseph  Lister.  In  the  first  place  he 
says : — 

"  Putting  theory  and  private  conviction  aside,  and  influenced  solely 
"  by  a  verdict  which  seemed  almost  unanimous,  and  by  the  surgical 
"  conscience  which  obliges  us  all  to  do  everything  we  can,  and  to  use 
"everything  we  know,  for  the  welfare  of  our  patients,  I  gave  Mr. 
"Lister's  method  a  trial,  which  extended  over  a  series  of  abdominal 
"sections.  This  was  composed  of  nearly  a  hundred  operations,  sixty 
"of  which  were  for  the  removal  of  ovarian  tumors,  and  the  detailed 
"results  of  most  of  them,  and  many  others,  are  given  in  the  paper 
"  I  have  already  alluded  to.  The  conclusions  of  the  figures,  which 
"  were  not,  and  so  far,  have  not  been,  challenged,  were  in  every  way 
"  against  Mr.  Lister's  practice;  and  the  influence  which  has  been  exer- 

*  Physiological  Fallacies,  No.  11. 


17 

"  cised  by  this  paper  has  been  considerable,  in  modifying  the  views 
"of  a  large  number  of  competent  authorities  upon  this  important 
"  subject. 

"I  announced  in  that  paper  that,  having  come  to  the  conclusion 
"  that  Mr.  Lister's  system,  when  completely  used,  was  prejudicial  to 
"  my  patients,  not  only  in  the  question  of  mortality  but  in  the  speed 
"and  evenness  with  which  they  recovered,  I  should  further  inquire 
"  into  the  influence  of  the  method,  etc." 

Lawson  Tait  goes  on  to  say  that,  having  begun  his  operations  with 
the  use  of  the  carbolic  spray,  he  soon  came  to  the  conclusion  that  it 
was'  absolutely  injurious,  and  eventually  rejected  carbolic  acid  alto- 
gether, using  only  a  spray  of  steam  from  ordinary  hydrant  water, 
which  proved  very  successful.  He  then  says,  "  This  research  occupied 
"nearly  two  years,  and  all  through  that  time  I  was  carefully  on  the 
"watch  for  either  symptoms  or  results  which  would  arrest  me  in  my 
"  experiment  and  show  me  that  I  was  in  error,  and  that  I  must  retrace 
"my  steps  and  reestablish  Listerism  in  my  practice,  but  I  found  none. 
"...  Suffice  it  to  say  that,  since  the  time  when  I  may  be  said  to  have 
"abandoned  the  practice  of  Listerism,  I  have  performed  107  cora- 
"  pleted  operations  for  the  removal  of  ovarian  tumors,  and  of  these 
"there  have  been  only  three  deaths,  or  a  mortality  of  2.08  per 
"cent." 

You  can  now  see  what  is  thought  by  this  great  authority  of  the  car- 
bolic spray,  at  least,  in  ovariotomy  operations. 

But  Dr.  Keen  says,  as  if  resolved  to  meet  every  difficulty  that 
may  arise,  "We  may  reject  carbolic  acid  and  the  spray."  Reject 
carbolic  acid  and  the  spray  !  !  !  Then  we  reject  what  many  high 
authorities  consider  the  essence  of  Listerism.  Lawson  Tait  con- 
cludes by  saying  that  Sir  Joseph  Lister  has  done  much  good  by 
careful  attention  to  details,  but  for  a  knowledge  of  the  fact  that 
this  careful  attention  to  details,  was  so  vitally  necessary  to  success, 
we  are  not  indebted  to  experiments  on  animals.  He  gives  him  no 
such  extravagant  praise  as  is  bestowed  upon  him  by  Dr.  Keen,  nor 
does  he  mention  any  of  the  benefits  which  Dr.  Keen  claims  that  we 
owe  to  his  discoveries. 

I  will,  in  passing,  say  a  few  words  in  reply  to  what  Dr.  Keen  men- 
tions of  Pasteur's  experiments  with  the  attenuated  virus  of  rabies,  to 
which  I  have  already  alluded.  This  discovery  has  just  been  applied 
to  man  for  the  first  time,  and  it  has  not  yet  been  positively  demon- 
strated whether  it  will  prove  a  success  or  not ;  but  admitting  that  it 
may  be,  I  will  show  you  at  what  a  cost  of  animal  suffering  the  virus  is 


18 

obtained.*  Its  efficacy  lasts  a  very  short  time — only  a  few  days — so 
that  it  is  always  necessary  to  have  a  succession  of  dogs  inoculated  with 
rabies,  in  order  to  obtain  fresh  virus.  It  is  also  necessary  to  have  a 
constant  succession  of  either  rabbits  or  monkeys,  with  their  skulls 
opened  and  the  virus  injected  therein,  in  order  to  obtain  the  necessary 
attenuation.  An  adoring  disciple  of  Pasteur,  visiting  his  laboratory, 
gives  this  description  of  it:  "Isolated  in  round  and  well-secured 
cages  are  the  mad  dogs.  Some  of  them  are  already  at  the  stage  of 
furious  madness — biting  the  bars,  devouring  hay  and  uttering  those 
dismal  howls  which  no  one  can  forget  who  has  once  heard  them. 
Other  dogs  are  still  in  the  incubating  period,  and  still  caressing,  with 
soft  eyes,  imploring  a  kind  look."f 

Does  not  this  seem  too  painful  a  method  of  obtaining  exemption 
from  hydrophobia  for  the  human  race,  in  view  of  the  fact  that  the 
disease  is  so  rare  that  it  is  said  that  one  "hundred  deaths  occur  from 
lightning  to  one  from  hydrophobia,  and  of  those  who  are  bitten  by 
mad  dogs  only  twenty  out  of  every  hundred  are  likely  to  have  the 
disease. 

I  have  now  answered  in  detail,  one  by  one,  all,  or  nearly  all  of  the 
claims  which  Dr.  Keen  makes  on  behalf  of  vivisection,  but  I  have  not 
yet  done.  I  now  propose  to  reply  to  his  main  or  general  argument, 
by  asking  why,  if  such  immense  gains  have  been  made  during  the  last 
twenty-five  years,  as  he  alleges,  is  there  so  little  diminution  in  the 
mortality  of  the  principal  diseases  that  afflict  mankind? 

In  an  article  which  appeared  lately  in  Lippincott' 's  Magazine,  entitled 
"Vivisection,  is  it  Useful  or  Justifiable?"  by  Dr.  Alfred  J.  Leffing- 
well,  he  says  :  — 

"  If  scientific  evidence  is  worth  anything,  it  points  to  the  appalling 
conclusion  that,  notwithstanding  all  the  researches  of  physiology,  some 
of  the  chief  forms  of  disease  exhibit  to-day,  in  England,  a  greater  fatality 
than  thirty  years  ago.  In  the  following  table  I  have  indicated  the 
average  annual  mortality,  per  million  inhabitants,  of  certain  diseases, 
first,  for  the  period  of  five  years  from  1850  to  1854,  and  secondly,  for 
the  period  twenty-five  years  later,  from  1875  t0  I^79-     The  authority 

*  It  seems  wonderful  that  sensible  people  can  be  so  carried  away  by  Pasteur's  investigations  in 
regard  to  hydrophobia,  which  have  as  yet  amounted  to  no  practical  value,  since  he  has  not  cured  one 
case  of  declared  hydrophobia.  He  claims  to  have  prevented  it  in  the  persons  whom  he  has  inocu- 
lated, but  who  can  show  that  they  would  ever  have  had  the  disease, since  it  had  not  manifested  itself 
in  any  way,  at  the  time  they  first  applied  to  Pasteur.  Moreover,  the  intelligence  has  just  arrived, 
since  the  above  was  written,  that  his  cure  has  failed  when  applied  to  a  case  where  hydrophobia  had 
begun  to  be  developed.  The  Zoophilist  of  Jan.  ist,  1886,  mentions  that  a  little  girl  of  nine  years  of 
age,  who  was  taken  to  him,  and  whom  he  inoculated,  died  not  long  afterward,  of  the  disease. 

f  Paris  Figaro,  Jan.  26th,  1884. 


19 


is  beyond  question  ;  the  facts  are  collected  from  the  report  to  Parlia- 
ment of  the  Registrar-General  of  England  : — 

Average  Annual  Rate  of  Mortality  in  England,  froiti  Causes  of  Death,  per  One 
Million   Inhabitants. 


NAME    OF    DISEASE. 


Gout, 

Aneurism, 

Diabetes, 

Insanity, 

Syphilis, 

Epilepsy, 

Bright's  disease, 

Kidney  disease, 

Brain  disease, 

Liver  disease, 

Heart  disease, 

Cancer, 

Paralysis, 

Apoplexy 

Tubercular    diseases    and    diseases    of   the    respiratory 
organs, 

Mortality  from  above  diseases, 

Mortality  from  all  causes  whatsoever, 


During 

Five  Years, 

1850-54. 


12 
16 

23 
29 

37 

105 

32 

94 

192 

215 

6Si 
302 

440 
454 

6,424 


9,026 
22,299 


During 
Five  Years, 

1875-79. 


25 
32 
41 

57 
86 
119 
1S2 
114 
281 
291 

1.335 
491 

501 
552 


10,994 
21,250 


"  This  is  certainly  a  most  startling  exhibit,  when  we  remember  that 
from  only  these  few  causes  about  half  of  all  the  deaths  in  England 
annually  occur,  and  that  from  them  result  the  deaths  of  two-thirds  of 
the  persons,  of  both  sexes,  who  reach  the  age  of  twenty  years.  What  are 
the  effects  here  discernible  of  Bernard's  experiments  upon  diabetes? 
Of  Brown-Sequard's  upon  epilepsy  and  paralysis?  of  Flint's  and  Pavy's 
on  diseases  of  the  liver?  of  Ferrier's  researches  upon  the  functions  of 
the  brain  ?  Let  us  appeal  from  the  heated  enthusiasm  of  the  experi- 
menter to  the  stern  facts  of  the  statistician.  Why,  so  far  from  having 
obtained  the  least  mastery  over  those  malignant  forces  which  seem  for- 
ever to  elude  and  baffle  our  art,  they  are  actually  gaining  upon  us; 
every  one  of  these  forms  of  disease  is  more  fatal  to-day  in  England 
than  thirty  years  ago;  during  1879  over  sixty  thousand  more  deaths 
resulted  from  these  maladies  alone  than  would  have  occurred  had  the 
rate  of  mortality  from  them  been  simply  that  which  prevailed  during 
the  benighted  period  of  1850  to  1854  !  True,  during  the  later  period 
there  has  been  a  diminished  mortality  in  England,  but  it  is  from  the 
lesser  prevalence  of  zymotic  diseases,  which  no  one  to-day  pretends  to 
cure ;  while  the  organic  diseases  show  a  constant  tendency  to  increase. 


20 


Part  of  this  may  be  due  to  more  accurate  diagnosis  and  clearer  defini- 
tion of  mortality  causes  ;  but  this  will  not  explain  a  phenomenon  which 
is  too  evident  to  be  overlooked." 

Before  bidding  adieu  to  Dr.  Keen's  address,  I  wish  to  notice  the 
last  sentence  but  one  which  occurs  in  it,  commencing  as  follows : 
"The  sentiments  of  our  own  profession,  so  constantly  and  conspicu- 
ously humane,  are  always  against  inflicting  pain,  etc."  As  a  set-off  to 
this  gratifying  tribute  paid  by  Dr.  Keen  to  himself  and  his  fellow  prac- 
titioners, I  feel  called  upon  to  cite  some  of  the  replies  made  by  Dr. 
Emmanuel  Klein,  one  of  the  noted  European  Vivisectors,  before  the 
English  Royal  Commission,  appointed  to  investigate  the  subject  of 
Vivisection  : — 


Question. 


3538. — What  is  your  own  practice 
with  regard  to  the  use  of  anaesthetics 
in  experiments  that  are  otherwise 
painful  ? 


3539. — When  you  say  that  you 
only  use  them  for  convenience'  sake, 
do  you  mean  that  you  have  no  re- 
gard at  all  to  the  sufferings  of  the 
animals  ? 


3540. — You  are  prepared  to  estab- 
lish that  as  a  principle  you  ap- 
prove ? 


3541 . — Then  for  your  own  purpose, 
you  disregard  entirely  the  question 
of  the  suffering  of  the  animal,  in  per- 
forming a  painful  experiment  ? 

3546. — Do  you  believe  that  it  is  a 
general  practice  on  the  Continent  to 
disregard  altogether  the  feelings  of 
the  animals  ? 


Answer. 
Except  for  teaching  purposes,  for 
demonstration,  I  never  use  anaes- 
thetics, where  it  is  not  necessary  for 
convenience.  If  I  demonstrate,  I  use 
anaesthetics.  If  I  do  experiments  for 
my  inquiries  in  pathological  research, 
except  for  convenience'  sake,  as  for 
instance,  on  dogs  and  cats,  I  do  not 
use  them.  On  frogs  and  the  lower 
animals  I  never  use  them. 


No  regard  at  all. 


I  think  that,  with  regard  to  an  ex- 
perimenter, a  man  who  conducts 
special  research  and  performs  an  ex- 
periment has  no  time,  so  to  speak, 
to  think  what  will  the  animal  feel  or 
suffer.  His  only  purpose  is  to  per- 
form the  experiment,  to  learn  from  it 
as  much  as  possible,  and  to  do  it  as 
quickly  as  possible. 

I  do. 


I  believe  so. 


21 

From  this  evidence  of  Dr.  Klein's,  it  is  obvious  what  sort  of  a  man 
he  is;  that,  as  far  as  any  feeling  for  animals  is  concerned,  he  might 
as  well  be  a  stone  ;  and  he  says  that  the  physiologists  of  the  continent, 
among  whom  are  many  doctors,  are  like  him.  If  these  are  what  Dr. 
Keen  calls  humane  men,  he  must  use  a  different  lexicon  from  ours. 

I  have  considered  these  claims  which  Dr.  Keen  has  made,  so 
far,  solely  in  the  light  of  whether  the  discoveries  to  which  he  alludes 
have  been  of  any  real  use  to  mankind  or  not,  and  I  hope  that  I  have 
succeeded  in  proving,  to  your  satisfaction,  that,  as  a  general  thing, 
they  have  not  been  of  use.  But  I  have  said  nothing  of  the  objec- 
tions that  can  be  made  to  ATvisection  in  a  moral  point  of  view,  nor 
have  I  alluded,  except  incidentally,  to  the  almost  indescribable  bar- 
barities which  are  the  natural  result  of  unchecked  experimentation 
upon  animals,  and  which  always  will  be  the  result,  to  a  greater  or  less 
extent,  where  men  are  left  at  full  liberty  to  carry  out  their  investiga- 
tions in  any  manner  they  please,  free  to  gratify  every  caprice  of  a 
sometimes  morbid  fancy,  every  experiment  suggested  by  an  unnatural 
and  diseased  curiosity,  as  in  the  case  of  Dr.  Mantegazza,  of  Florence, 
who  made  a  series  of  experiments  upon  rabbits  and  guinea  pigs,  to 
find  how  long  they  would  live  when  kept  without  food,  and  subjected 
every  day,  while  in  a  starving  condition,  to  the  most  severe  torture 
that  he  could  devise,  He  constructed  an  instrument  for  the  purpose 
of  giving  the  most  atrocious  pain  it  was  possible  to  inflict,  and  to  this 
the  poor  little  animals  were  subjected  at  intervals  of  a  few  hours,  until 
they  died  from  the  combined  influence  of  torture  and  starvation,  some 
living  six  days,  some  seven,  and  others  still  longer.  Dr.  Mantegazza, 
does  not  appear  even  to  have  pretended  that  these  experiments  were 
for  the  benefit  of  mankind  or  for  any  good  purpose  whatsoever. 

The  Edinburgh  Medical  Journal Tor  1868  and  1869  gives  an  account 
of  thirty  dogs  that  were  set  on  fire  after  being  rubbed  with  oil  of 
turpentine,  or  scalded  by  pouring  boiling  water  a  number  of  times  in 
quick  succession  over  some  of  the  vital  organs.  The  result  was  that 
all  the  dogs  died ;  some  in  a  few  hours,  and  some  not  for  five  days. 
They  were  narcotized  to  some  extent  at  the  time  of  the  burnings  and 
scaldings,  but  what  must  have  been  the  sufferings  of  those  which  lived 
for  several  days  after  the  influence  of  the  narcotic  had  passed  off? 

This  was  done  by  Dr.  Wertheim,  of  Vienna. 

You  may  say,  though,  that  these  experimenters  were  foreigners,  and 
not  of  our  English-speaking  nation,  from  whom  you  would  look  for 
better  things.  I  am  afraid  it  must  be  admitted,  however,  that  things 
almost  as  barbarous  as  these  have  been  done,  over  and  over  again,  in 
Great  Britain,  particularly  in  Edinburgh. 


22 

The  Earl  of  Carnarvon,  when  President  of  the  Royal  Society  for 
the  Prevention  of  Cruelty  to  Animals,  in  his  address  at  an  annual 
meeting,  spoke  as  follows:  "What  will  you  say  of  that  man  who 
'  keeps  a  dog,  not  for  hours,  but  for  days,  under  the  torture  of  the 
'  dissecting  knife,  until  the  spectator,  grown  callous  to  suffering,  be- 
'  comes  as  savage  as  the  operator  himself?  What  will  you  say  to  him 
'  who  could  calmly  for  days  prolong  atrocities  and  sufferings  which 
'  no  Christian  eye  can  witness  without  horror,  no  Christian  lip 
'  describe  but  in  the  most  unmeasured  language  of  indignation  ?  I 
'  will  state  still  further.  What  will  a  Christian  audience  say,  when 
'  they  hear  that  the  revolting  fact  was  perpetrated  and  recorded  in 
'■  the  city  of  Edinburgh  ?  That  an  iron  was  heated,  and  then  forced 
'  into  the  brain  of  the  unfortunate  animal,  which  with  fiendish  skill 
'  was  kept  alive  for  the  space  of  sixteen  days.  By  whom  was  this 
'  atrocity  perpetrated  ?  By  men  who  pride  themselves  on  their  science 
'and  their  civilization,  but  who,  in  fact,  are  more  benighted  in  point 
'  of  civilization  and  Christianity  than  the  benighted  savages  of 
'  Scythia.  Will  you  be  able  to  restrain  your  indignation  then,  when 
'  you  are  calmly  told  that  it  is  better  to  leave  such  matters  to  the 
' '  discretion '  of  individuals  ?  In  other  cases,  the  law  of  outraged 
'  morals  steps  in  to  protect  and  avenge ;  but  against  these  cases, 
'  offensive  to  the  light,  outraging  decency,  repugnant  to  generous 
'sympathy  and  to  the  Christian  faith,  the  law  deals  not  its  thunders. 
'  The  young  and  inexperienced  who  are  attracted  to  these  charnel- 
'  houses,  where  horrors  not  to  be  described  are  permitted  under  the 
'  name  of  science,  must  in  time  have  all  feelings  of  compassion  for 
'suffering  entirely  obliterated." 

Dr.  Wickham  Legg,  in  the  ninth  volume  of  St.  Bartholomew's  Hos- 
pital Reports,  gives  the  history  of  his  experiments  upon  sixteen'  cats, 
opening  each  one  by  making  an  incision  in  the  abdomen,  and  tying 
the  bile  ducts,  for  the  purpose,  apparently,  of  seeing  what  would  be 
the  effect  upon  the  system  of  depriving  it  of  bile.  The  result  was  the 
same  in  all  the  cases,  viz.,  that  the  cats  died. 

Another  dreadful  set  of  experiments  was  performed  by  Professor 
Rutherford,  of  Edinburgh,  upon  a  number  of  dogs,  for  the  purpose 
of  ascertaining  the  effect  of  calomel  upon  the  liver.  In  these  experi- 
ments, also,  the  animals  were  cut  open,  the  common  bile  duct  dis- 
sected out,  divided  and  a  glass  tube  inserted  therein,  and  the  wound 
in  the  abdomen  then  closed  up.  Dr.  Wall,  in  speaking  of  these  ex- 
periments, says,  "  If  any  one  has  witnessed  the  symptoms  of  the  pas- 
sage of  a  gall  stone  down  the  bile  duct  in  the  human  being,  let  him 
picture,  then,  a  dog  suffering  more  than  this  awful  agony,  often  for 


23 

eight  hours,  and  he  will  have  some  faint  conception  of  what  Vivisec- 
tion is." 

In  this  country,  also,  not  only  is  there  a  great  deal  of  vivisection, 
but  cruel  experiments  are  frequently  made.  Within  a  few  years  some 
of  Magendie's  most  inhuman  and  objectionable  experiments  have  been 
performed  in  New  York,  by  way  of  class  illustration.  Some  years  ago 
a  physician  here  in  Philadelphia,  who  was  assisting  a  well-known 
physiologist  of  this  city  in  carrying  on  a  series  of  investigations  on 
dogs,  told  me  himself  that  it  was  dreadful  to  witness  the  sufferings  of 
the  animals  upon  which  they  experimented. 

An  experiment  sometimes  performed  by  physiologists  is,  to  starve 
animals  to  death,  and  watch  them  in  their  dying  agonies  for  certain 
symptoms,  such  as  they  hope  or  desire  to  find. 

But  the  list  of  horrors  perpetrated  "  for  the  advancement  of  science 
and  in  the  interest  of  the  human  race  "  is  so  long  that  we  do  not  care 
to  make  any  further  quotations  from  the  gruesome  annals  of  Vivisec- 
tion. Of  some  of  the  worst  experiments,  such  as  those  upon  the 
nerves,  in  recurrent  sensibility,  etc.,  I  have  said  nothing,  for  the  task 
is  too  painful. 

Mr.  Mark  Thornhill,  in  his  book  entitled  "  The  Clergy  and  Vivi- 
section," when  speaking  of  the  Report  of  the  Royal  Commission 
(which  I  have  previously  mentioned),  says,  "  The  Report  contains 
the  record  of  hundreds  of  experiments  and  allusions  to  thousands. 
The  details  of  several  are  elaborately  discussed.  They  are  such  that 
when  their  meaning  is  realized,  it  is  sufficient  to  make  the  blood 
almost  curdle  with  horror.  They  suggest  agonies  so  fearful,  so  pro- 
tracted, as  to  cause  one  to  wonder  how  man  could  inflict  them,  how 
nature  could  endure  them — if  it  be  not  irreverent  to  say  so — how 
Providence  could  permit  them." 

What,  then,  do  you  suppose,  must  be  the  effect  of  such  cruelties 
upon  the  moral  nature  of  those  who  practice  them  ?  Such  a  thing  is, 
of  course,  possible,  as  for  a  man  to  be  a  vivisector  and  continue  humane, 
a  notable  example  being  that  of  Sir  Charles  Bell,  who,  in  the  latter 
part  of  his  life,  regretted  extremely  the  experiments  that  he  had  thought 
it  might  be  right  to  perform,  in  the  beginning  of  his  career,  although 
he  had  always  many  doubts  upon  the  subject ;  but  such  instances  are, 
I  believe,  very  rare,  particularly  upon  the  continent  of  Europe. 

Miss  Frances  Power  Cobbe,  when  speaking  of  Dr.  Mantegazza,  says, 
"  How  much  benefit  to  mankind  would  be  necessary  to  counterbalance 
the  leprosy  of  that  man's  soul?  "  and  this  remark  might,  we  fear,  be 
found  applicable  to  many  others. 

Dr.  Houghton,  in  his  evidence  before  the  Royal  Commission,  said 


24 

that  he  "would  shrink  with  horror  from  introducing  students  into 
laboratories  to  witness  painful  experiments  which  would  demoralize 
them.  Science  would  gain  nothing,"  he  said,  "and  the  world  would 
have  let  loose  a  set  of  young  devils." 

In  view  of  this  almost  inevitable  demoralization  consequent  upon 
cruel  and  unrestricted  vivisection — vivisection  as  it  now  exists  in  every 
civilized  country  in  the  world  but  England — as  well  as  in  view  of  all 
the  other  facts  that  I  have  placed  before  you,  will  not  all  of  you  who 
read  this  appeal,  resolve  that  you  will  no  longer  support  such  an  iniqui- 
tous and  atrocious  system,  or  even  remain  passive  or  indifferent  in  the 
matter ;  but  that,  putting  on  the  armor  of  Righteousness,  you  will  go 
forth  boldly  to  do  battle  against  the  enemies  of  Mercy  and  Humanity, 
and  that  you  will  not  falter  or  grow  weary  in  the  conflict  while  life  and 
strength  are  spared  to  you.  I  do  not  ask  you  to  urge  the  total  aboli- 
tion of  experiments  upon  animals,  if  you  are  satisfied  that  they  are 
sometimes  of  benefit  to  mankind,  but  that,  wherever  you  may  be  settled, 
you  will  agitate  the  subject  unceasingly  until  you  have  obtained  a  law 
that  will  render  impossible  such  scenes  as  may  to-day  be  witnessed  in 
the  laboratories  of  nearly  every  part  of  the  civilized  world — scenes  so 
atrociously  cruel  that  they  would  disgrace  a  Sodom  or  Gomorrah — a 
law  that  will,  in  short,  put  a  stop  to  the  abuses  of  Vivisection.  The 
English  law  has  done  a  great  amount  of  good,  but  even  under  that  Act 
many  cruel  experiments  may  be  performed.  Dr.  Henry  J.  Bigelow, 
of  Boston,  and  Dr.  Leffingvvell,  both  of  whom  I  have  quoted,  unite  in 
believing  that  vivisectional  experiments  should  be  restricted  to  those 
that  can  be  performed  entirely  without  pain,  by  the  thorough  admin- 
istration of  anaesthetics  and  the  killing  of  the  animal  operated  upon, 
before  the  return  of  consciousness.  To  accomplish  this  may  be  a 
difficult  matter,  but  I  beg  you,  at  any  rate,  to  remember  that,  where 
in  doubt  between  two  courses,  it  is  always  better  to  choose  that  which 
inclines  the  most  to  the  side  of  Humanity,  and  remember,  also,  that 
there  is  a  sentence  in  Holy  Writ,  spoken  by  lips  that  we  all  love  and 
revere,  which  makes  light  of  any  physical  advantage  gained  at  the 
cost  of  a  moral  deterioration,  and  says,  "  If  thy  right  hand  offend 
thee,  cut  it  off  and  cast  it  from  thee ;  for  it  is  better  that  one  of  thy 
members  should  perish  than  that  thy  whole  body  should  be  cast  into 
hell."     This  is  not  the  doctrine  of  Vivisection. 

Caroline  Earle  White. 


